


The Best Brother

by Uniasus



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003)
Genre: Gen, Post-Series Pre-Movie, Why Brain Why, homunculus nina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 07:53:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14374290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Uniasus/pseuds/Uniasus
Summary: Wrath wants to beat Edward at his own game - be a better brother.





	The Best Brother

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why I wrote this. Nina is depressing enough.

At the offer of getting automail – Ed’s automail – Wrath reset. He didn’t really care that had been days, maybe weeks, since Dante was eaten, Alphonse made whole, Edward taken beyond his reach. Didn’t recall how he got to Resembool.

What mattered was another chance to hurt Edward Elric. Take his metal limbs.

Wrath handled the surgery better than Ed did. As a homunculus, he healed fast enough to fight with the limbs in half an hour. Training to use them took a little longer, his brain had to learn how to direct the automail, and again Wrath prided himself on being fully mobile much faster than Ed.

No one else seemed to care though.

The blonde girl – Winry – helped him through the process with professional care. The dark girl – Rose – either didn’t realize how impressive his accomplishments were or was too preoccupied with the care of her child. Wrath didn’t care about the old lady.

Who he should care about, Alphonse Elric, Wrath ignored.

After all, what was the point of doing things to hurt Ed if Ed wasn’t there to be hurt? There was no reason to hurt Al, other than pure spite.

And spite didn’t seem to be enough to keep Wrath going for long. Not against a kid younger than him, who had no memories of their battles. Who saw Wrath not as an enemy, or keeper of his brother’s limbs. No, Al saw him as nothing but a fellow child in a way that reminded Wrath of Izumi so much he strangely wanted to hug the other boy.

Thus, Wrath found himself with nothing to direct his anger toward. No one inspired a boiling rage to flood his veins, no one had things or people he wanted. He wasn’t even sure if he could be called Wrath anymore, aside from the dull flare of anger he felt when he looked down at his clenched automail fist.

_I took this from you, Edward Elric. I have taken a part of your humanity._

But that felt sour in his mouth, like the air charged by the transmutation circle that made homunculus vomit their stones. Because Lust had believed humanity was linked to death, and Wrath didn’t like that idea.

He kicked at the grass and circled the house again.

He didn’t know why he was still in Resembool, days after gaining full mobility. He blamed Ed and didn’t know how to take that blame out on the blonde.

For the first time, Wrath thought he might be angry at himself.

“Ed. I want to name him Ed.”

Wrath froze at the sound of Rose’s voice filtering out the window. He crept over and peeked into the house to see Rose and Winry sitting at the kitchen table, Rose nursing the infant.

It grew fast. _Was that humanity? Growing?_

“I’m imagining Ed’s face,” Winry answered, “Learning you named your son after him. All flustered and pink.”

Rose laughed. “He would. But Ed opened my eyes to a lot. Cornello, my own capabilities. He told me once ‘You have two good legs. Get up the use them.’ It became my personal motto.”

Winry smiled. “Sounds like Ed.”

“Ed has been good to me, Winry, and gave me a purpose. Helping others. And if my son could do half as much as Ed has done, he’ll live up to his name.”

Wrath watched as Winry reached a hand over the table to touch Rose’s arm. “Ed would be honored. And I’m sure this Ed will do great things.” Winry leaned back, pulling herself into her chair to stare at her own hands. “It’s nice to know Ed left a legacy. Brought Al back. Inspired people. Made things as right as he could. He tired to make the world better.”

“Yes,” Rose agreed.

Huffing, Wrath sunk to the grass below the window.

Gone and dead, Ed still had more than Wrath did. People who cared. A _legacy._ And Wrath knew there was nothing he could do to steal those. Make the women in the house caring for him would not stop them from caring about Ed. And you couldn’t erase history.

But what… what if he could get better things than Ed? A better legacy. More friends. Wrath could gather them all to himself and then shout through the Gate to tell the alchemist he was a pitiful human, that Wrath, a homunculus, had lived better than him.

Wrath grinned, the idea flowing from his mind and down to his toes. Filling him up, giving him energy. The fury that pumped through his veins transited to spite-driven ambition. He would beat Edward Elric at his own game – being human.

A high pitched laugh sounded in the air. Wrath turned to look around the corner of the house to see Alphonse Elric running up the path, Den barking at his heels.

Ed had been a good older brother; Wrath could admit that. Ed had done everything he could for Al - following after Dante, building his life around helping Al, ultimately sacrificing his life for his brother’s body.

Wrath would have to be a better big brother too.

Could he steal Al?

Probably, but Al would fight back. Would never see Wrath as a good brother. He needed to start from scratch. Find a child or…

Or…

The youngest humonculus. Wrath could take care of her. Be a better brother, a better caretaker, than Ed or Izumi or Sloth. He could beat them all.

Grinning, Wrath pushed himself to his feet and started walking down the hill. He’d slip onto the next train and head back to Central. To the old ammunitions factory where he’d killed Lust.

To where the girl formally known as Nina lived her life as a doll in her father’s arms.

The perfect little sister.

* * *

Wrath scoured the floor of the factory and found a gold mine of red stones. He had expected Tucker to gather them up, or the scent to draw out Nina. Wrath himself couldn’t escape the hunger the scent brought up, devouring twenty of them before he caught himself.

After finding a bag, he stuffed the red stones in it. Between Lust and Sloth, the array had resulted in a lot of stones littering the ground. More than enough for Nina to gain her powers and a sense of self. Maybe enough, between the two of them, to keep them alive for a dozen centuries.

He could hold the record for the best big brother and carry that title until the end of the world.

Grinning, Wrath wrenched open the storm cellar doors. They flew from the hinges, the metal clanking against the factory equipment behind him. As Wrath descended the stairs, he made sure his footsteps were heavy.

Shou Tucker didn’t come to investigate the noise.

Then again, when Wrath got to the bottom of the stairs, he didn’t think Tucker was aware of anything outside of own world.

The chimera sat on his haunches before a wall covered in chalk-drawn arrays. He cradled Nina in his left arm, the girl’s gaze as vacant as it had been a month ago.

“Hey,” Wrath snarled.

Tucker didn’t stop explaining the array he was drawing. “See, Nina. Triangles for strength. Power, control, those depend on where they are. But triangles –“

“HEY!” Wrath shouted.

Tucker slowly turned his head, his upside face giving the appearance of a smile while he actually frowned. If he recognized Wrath, he gave very little sign of it. “Did you come to see Nina?” he rasped.

“I came to take her. She’s my little sister.”

“Sister?” Tucker looked down at the doll in his arm. “Nina doesn’t have a sister. It’s just the two of us.” He pulled her tighter to his body. Rocking. “Nina and me and Alexander. Alexander! Here boy! Come play.”

Wrath ground his teeth. Tucker had obviously lost his mind. Why he hadn’t lost his life yet was a mystery. Hadn’t Edward hated him? Hadn’t Tucker hurt Al? Why would Ed not eliminate threats to his brother?

Wrath would do it instead. He’d be better than Ed.

“Give me Nina.”

“No. Nina is my daughter.”

“She’s my sister. Now hand her over!”

Wrath could no longer perform alchemy; with Ed’s limbs again in the gate he had no ability to do so. But he had fangs. And he could still merge with the materials around him.

He lobbed the bag of stones at Tucker’s head. The fabric broke, raining red nuggets, but Wrath ignored them. Instead, he pressed his hands to the cement floor and _reached._ The ground near Tucker’s feet turned into snakes, moving up to wrap around the chimera’s legs.

In his shock, Tucker dropped Nina. Wrath paid the girl no attention, too intent on instructing a piece of the cement to creep up Tucker’s chest and then impale him.

Tucker gasped as the material bore through his animal heart and then continued to his human one, falling to his knees as blood started to mat his fur and skin.

“No! Nina, my girl. I need to teach her.”

Wrath pulled out of the ground, the floor returning to normal. His fangs on full display, he walked till he stood over Tucker’s dying body. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Nina reach a shaking hand towards a red stone.

“I’ll take care of my sister, not you,” Wrath spat. “You’re not even human, you can’t do it right.”

“Neither… neither are you.”

“I will be!” Wrath screamed in his face. “I’ll be the best human!”

Tucker had already bled out. He couldn’t hear Wrath’s promise.

Wrath clutched his hands into fists, angry Tucker was gone, angry Tucker couldn’t say ‘yes you will be better’. Angry he had no one to show up.

Over the huffs of his own breath he heard crunching. Moans of pleasure. Stone against stone.

Wrath looked down.

There, on the edge of Tucker’s rapidly expanding blood pool, laid Nina on her stomach. One hand shoved red stones into her mouth, the other scrambled around for more.

Smiling, Wrath scooped up a few stones near his feet and approached the girl. She stopped eating to watch him.

Remembering the horror he had felt when Envy told him the stones were human lives, he decided not to tell Nina. Instead, he held out his hand so Nina could eat out of it like a pet.

“Tasty, aren’t they? Eat your fill. They’re for you.”

Nina dove for the stones. Wrath ignored the pin-pricks of teeth on his palm.

“I’ll take care of you, little sister. I’ll give you everything you need. I’ll be the better brother. What do you want?”

She did answer, just brought Wrath’s hand closer to her mouth. When she bit his finger off, Wrath pulled his hand back.

He wanted to hit her. Punish her. But Ed wouldn’t hit Al. So Wrath didn’t hit Nina. Instead, he tossed her another stone. Nina caught it with her mouth.

The stones had a fast effect. Already Wrath could see dark red lines form on her body, a ring across the small of her back. As she sat up, her ouroboros relieved itself to be on the left side of her chest. A spot Wrath new well. Eventually, Nina’s body rippled. No longer did a naked girl sit in a pool of blood. Now, she sat clothed in a purple sundress, the square collar showing off her tattoo and the short hem revealing rings of red on her lower thighs.

The new Sloth.

But Wrath couldn’t call her that. Sloth was Mommy, and he couldn’t be big brother to a sin. That wouldn’t work. They would need to live normal lives. Human lives, with human names.

“Hello, Nina,” Wrath grinned. “I’m Alexander. I’m your big brother.”

“Play with me?”

Wrath’s grinned widened. Being a big brother would be so easy.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not planning on expanding this, but who knows. Maybe one day I'll write in the universe again. 
> 
> You're always welcome to hit me up on [Tumblr where I am also Uniasus ](uniasus.tumblr.com)


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